The decisions taken by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways and Ministry of Railways in the meeting will result in significantly breaking down shipping costs, improving availability of containers, resolving empty containers issue, faster evacuation of export consignments and reducing congestion at the ports said Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal while chairing an inter-ministerial meeting. 

An inter-ministerial meeting was held in New Delhi to address rising freight cost, shipping delays, shortage & non-availability of containers and congestion at the ports leading to difficulties being faced by exporters and adverse impact on the trade.

Goyal announced that Container Corporation of India (CONCOR) has decided to allow empty containers to be stored for a period of 90 days in the yard at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA) free of cost and has also slashed the loading and handling charges significantly.

Satish Kumar, Chairman and CEO, Railway Board announced that the charges of Rs. 3,000 that is being levied beyond 90 days, is now reduced to Rs. 1,500. Further, the storage and handling rates will be reduced for containers from Rs. 9,000 to Rs. 2,000 (for a 40 feet container) and from Rs. 6,000 to Rs. 1,000 (for a 20 feet container).

Goyal urged all stakeholders to make concerted efforts to significantly mitigate the difficulties and address the issues faced by the exporters, effectively deploy multi-disciplinary capabilities and adopt ‘whole of the government’ approach to ensure that no logistic difficulty is faced by the exporters.

Due to the current geopolitical tensions, Red Sea Crisis, Houthi operations, ongoing wars and its impact on international trade there was a need to engage with a multidisciplinary team, added Goyal.

The Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) announced that they are chartering container ships to significantly increase the container capacities. It was announced that on an immediate basis, capacity will be enhanced by 9,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs). The SCI will also buy additional five container ships to further enhance cargo handling capacity. The shipping lines assured that all charges like container transportation and Lift on-Lift off at yards would be embedded in the delivery order given to shippers.

T. K. Ramachandran, Secretary, Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Shipping announced that the port capacities have already been enhanced by 2.3 million TEUs. It was decided at the meeting that private container yards will have to mandatorily register themselves with GST authorities and that it would not accept any charges in cash in order to stop illegal profiteering arising out of shortage and delay.

Unmesh Sharad Wagh, Chairman, JNPT, assured that steps have already been taken to eliminate any congestion and bottlenecks. To enhance export related processes, traffic delays near & around JNPA will be minimized and simultaneous container scanning at JNPA will be implemented for faster clearances & reduced turnaround time.

Revenue Secretary, Sanjay Malhotra said that the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) will ensure that custom clearances at the ports will be expedited by simultaneous screening of two twenty feet containers.

At the end of the meeting, the representatives of exporters led by Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) expressed satisfaction with the present availability of containers and expressed that the immediate steps being taken by the government would result in significantly easing the congestion, delay and freight hike and would enhance the space availability on the outgoing container ships.